Quite often, pink magazines full of advertisements for garden furniture and
Jilly Cooper curtains call my wife to see if she’d like to become their
motoring correspondent. “We’d like you to write about cars from a female
point of view,” they always say.
Right. I see. And what exactly is a woman’s point of view when it comes to
cars. The colour? Whether you break your nails on the door handles? How much
space there is in the boot for babies? Puh-lease. My wife’s argument on this
point is sound. Women who are interested in cars are excited by exactly the
same things that excite men. Power. Looks. Handling. And women who aren’t
interested in cars won’t read about them, no matter what shaped genitals the
author has.
So she sends off 1,000 words about a Caterham Cosworth, saying that it ripped
her eyeballs out, set her hair on fire and left her with the same sort of
ruddy glow she gets from a really good Terminator movie. This, as a
general rule, is placed fairly quickly on the editor’s spike.
If we look back over the years, my wife, a mother of three, has run a Caterham
that she misses dearly, a Lotus Elise 111S that she sent back for sports
exhausts because it wasn’t loud enough, a BMW Z1 and a motorbike of some
kind. Currently she appears to have an Aston Martin V8 Vantage.
Ask her about space in the back for kids or whether these things have
convenient handles on which she can hang a handbag and she’ll shove a hot
conrod up your jacksie. She’s not bothered. And it’s an especially good idea
to steer clear of fuel consumption, because if you bring this up she’ll
siphon a gallon from the tank and use it to burn you alive.
This is why I always give sexism a wide berth when writing about cars. Any
suggestion that one model is better suited to men, or women, and I have to
spend the rest of the day disentangling myself from the ironing board. Or
begging to be let out of the Aga.
This is no great hardship because of all the “ists” you can call me, “sex-ist”
isn’t one of them. I don’t run for the exits when a pilot comes on the PA
system to say her name’s Sandra, and when a lady doctor is examining my
arthritic hips I’ve never once been tempted to say, “Oh, and while you’re
down there . . .”
However, I am bringing some stereotypes to the table this morning because I
have a question about the Lexus IS 250 SE. Have you ever seen one being
driven by a woman? In fact have you ever seen any Lexus being driven by a
woman? Apart from that girl in Terminator 3 who nicked a 430 convertible —
and she was technically a robot — I haven’t. I’ve seen girls in Evo 8s and
Ferraris and Astons. Once I even saw a girl in a Lamborghini LM002, which
caused a faint but distinct stirring. But never in a Lexulator.
I’m sure that Toyota’s marketing department will be reaching for the e-mail
button right now to send me figures that show x per cent of Lexees are
bought by women, but I bet that if these “female” customers were examined
more carefully, every single one would have an Adam’s apple.
It’s hard at first to see what makes the Lexus brand as uniquely male as a
Leatherman or a hunter-killer submarine. The IS a pretty car and we know
from every single survey ever undertaken that no other vehicle on the planet
is quite so well made.
Of course there are some things wrong with it. Space in the back is limited,
the seats aren’t overly supportive, the steering is way too sharp and the
door mirrors are the size of barn doors. But since when did a woman ever
complain about a mirror being too large? Perhaps, then, it’s the rev counter
that glows orange as you approach the red line. “Noooooo” wailed my wife
after she came back from the school run. “I loved that. I made it orange the
whole way home.”
What then? What feature does this car have that makes it so unappealing for
women? My wife couldn’t help. “I just don’t like it,” she said.
I did. Oh sure, it’s not the fastest car in the world. In fact it has about as
much power as my second serve. But this is not such a bad thing because of
that super-sharp steering.
If by some miracle you’re going too fast when you turn the wheel, you had
better be awake, because everything can get awfully skittish, awfully
quickly.
Also, the touch screen sat nav system was preposterously complicated. But you
can solve this, if you’re a woman, by reading the instruction book.
Me? I was too busy revelling in the quietness of the engine, the complete
absence of wind roar, even around the six-acre door mirrors, and the
well-chosen ride.
It’s never too harsh that it shatters your bones on every speed bump and it’s
never so soft that it flops into the hedgerow on every bend. I also loved
the sense that every button and every switch will outlive the sun.
Then there’s the stereo, which has (a lot) more power than the engine, and the
price. Take into account the list of standard goodies and this car costs not
hundreds but thousands of pounds less than a BMW 3-series. It’s better
looking than a 3-series too. In fact it’s better looking than a Mercedes
C-class, an Audi A4 and a Jaguar X-type. Obviously, in this sector of the
market, I’d take the Alfa Romeo 159 because that has a soul that the Lexus
is missing. But if you don’t want to be plagued with breakdowns, the IS 250
does appear to be a good bet.
And that brings me back to the original question. Why do you never see one
being driven by a woman? To find an answer we need to get logical. Nobody
who’s interested in cars, whether they’re a man or a woman, will buy a
Lexus. They’re just not zingy enough.
So they are only for people who are not interested in cars, people who simply
want four reliable wheels and a seat. And this is where things split. Men
are happy to go down the Lexus route whereas women are not.
To see if I could find out why, I did something unusual. I picked up the phone
and rang a few girls who don’t know one end of a dipstick from their left
cheque book. And all, curiously, said pretty much the same thing. “A Lexus?
Eugh.” “They’re perfectly revolting.” “They’re for people who play golf.”
And best of all: “They’re all driven by the sort of person I wouldn’t want
to know.”
There’s an inescapable conclusion here. Buy a Lexus and you are demonstrating
two things. First that you are a man, and second that you are not interested
in a car’s power or handling. This, it seems, is not something women find
attractive.
Think about this, before you say no to that Alfa.
